BEIJING, Aug. 11 -- An unknown number of people are missing under debris
after a landslide in east China's Zhejiang province caused several apartment
buildings to collapse Monday night.

At least six apartment buildings at the foot of a
mountain collapsed at about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday in Wenzhou City of Zhejiang
Province

Rescuers have pulled six people alive from the
debris, however, the exact number still missing is not known.

Soundbite: Wenzhou City resident "My legs were firmly
buried in the dust and I could not pull them out. then, I managed to push away
some bricks and used a long stick to knock at my legs. Finally, I managed to
creep out and was carried out by others."

Rescuers say the huge amount of mud and rock is
making it hard for them to find the missing.

Soundbite: Wenzhou City resident "I heard some
disturbing noise,very loud. I was on the third floor, while my wife was on the
second floor. Then, I ran down to the second floor to call my wife to escape
from the house. But, unfortunately, the house collapsed before we managed to
escape, and my wife was buried in the dust."

Two bodies have been found at the site.

The landslide was triggered by days of continuous
torrential rain from Typhoon Morakot. The meteorological station in Wenzhou's
Taishun County recorded 1,241 millimeters or almost 49 inches of rain from
August 6 to 10. That is the heaviest typhoon-induced rainfall observed by a
single meteorological station in Zhejiang in six decades.

More than 8.8 million people in the provinces of
Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Anhui have been impacted.

Of those, the Ministry of Civil Affairs says
authorities have had to relocate 1.4 million people from their homes as a result
of flooding.

More than 6,000 houses were toppled by the storm, and
some 387,300 hectares of cropland are flooded. Direct economic losses are
estimated to amount to 9 billion yuan or 1.3 billion U.S. dollars.